According to a research conducted by Affinion International, 9 out of 10 UK consumers are worried about personal details being available publicly online, with a similar number (92%) concerned about fraudsters illegally obtaining their financial information.
Findings indicate 13% of British shoppers admitting that they do nothing whatsoever to protect their information while online, rising to 26% of 18-24 year olds. Also, almost half (42%) of consumers do not use any online protection software, leaving themselves vulnerable to online criminal threats including phishing, key logging and screen capture malware.
The report shows that a fifth of respondents have been a victim of identity theft. In 87% of cases, victims had money spent fraudulently in their name and whilst most managed to recoup losses from fraudulent spending, almost 9% said they lost money as a result with the average loss being GBP 2,100. Just under half of identity theft victims found out by spotting something irregular on their bank statement or credit report, with 38% saying they would have valued a service to help them resolve the incident.
The relative distrust in paying with credit or debit cards comes despite debit cards still being the most popular online payment method of choice. Over three quarters (76.3%) of consumers have paid for goods and services with a debit card online in 2014, but almost as many now use PayPal (75.4%) viewing it as more secure than using a chip and PIN card in person and online accounts such as iTunes and Amazon.
Every day we send out a free e-mail with the most important headlines of the last 24 hours.
Subscribe now